A blog launched on the 41st anniversary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the first pro-life organisation in the world, established on 11 January 1967. SPUC has been a leader in the educational and political battle against abortion, human embryo experimentation and euthanasia since then. I write this blog in my role as SPUC's chief executive, commenting on pro-life news, reflecting on pro-life issues and promoting SPUC's work.

Monday, 30 November 2015

Liam Gibson, SPUC's development officer in Northern Ireland, has just issued the following statement on a truly tragic day for Ireland's unborn children and their mothers:

BELFAST 30 November 2015: The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the UK’s leading pro-life organisation, says that the ruling by the High Court that Northern Ireland’s ban on abortion breaches human rights is “dangerously flawed”.

SPUC is calling on the Attorney General to work with pro-life groups to mount a robust appeal against the judgement.

Earlier this year the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission applied for a judicial review of the law. The Commission claimed that the law, which prohibits abortion, violates the European Convention on Human Rights because it does not make exceptions for children who are disabled or whose mothers had been victims of rape or sexual assault.

Liam Gibson, the Northern Ireland development officer for SPUC, which intervened in the case, said:

“The ruling by Judge Mark Horner is dangerously flawed. The judge misrepresented the protection of children before birth in case law and statute law in Northern Ireland. He also confused the separate legal issues of viability and the capacity to be born alive.”

Liam Gibson continued:

“Not one universal human rights treaty recognises a right to abortion. However, the right to life is shared by all members of the human family. The Declaration on the Rights of the Child (DRC) acknowledges that ‘the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth’. The DRC explicitly states that the need for such special safeguards is ‘recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.”

The greatest strength of SPUC's campaign in Northern Ireland over the past several decades has been the united opposition to abortion by the overwhelming majority of the community by Catholics and Protestants alike. May that unity, supported by prayer, grow ever stronger as we work to restore the protection of the law for unborn children, the most persecuted group of human beings in world history.

Tuesday, 24 November 2015

The values and wishes of parents must be at the heart of the way in which Ofsted rates schools on how they teach sex education, says Antonia Tully of SPUC Safe at School, following a report that government would like sex and relationships education (SRE) higher up the list of Ofsted's scoring system, rather than making it a compulsory school subject.

Friday, 20 November 2015

Antonia Tully, an expert on the impactof graphic sex education on children

Antonia Tully, leader of the Safe at School initiative, a project of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, was invited to Romania this month by the Metropolitan Orthodox Church of Moldova and Bukovina and pro-life groups to speak about the impact on children of graphic sex education. Here is her encouraging report about parents' resistance in Romania which she concludes with the words: "If mandatory sex education is stopped at the Romanian border it will deal a much needed blow to the global campaign to sexualise and defile the innocent hearts and minds of the world's children."

The global drive to make school sex education mandatory for the world's children is finding strong and organised resistance in Romania, where the issue currently hangs in the balance. The country's Minister for Health favours pro-abortion/LGBT style sex education while the Minister for Education would like to see Romanian children taught the family values promoted by the pro-life lobby.

The good news is that introducing graphic sex education into Romanian schools will not be a pushover. Having recently returned from a week-long visit to Romania at the invitation of the Metropolitan See of Moldova and Bucovina, I saw parents and the Orthodox church standing shoulder to shoulder determined to protect their children from damaging sex education. The bad news is that the sex education lobby has been given access to the political and civic infrastructure to promote its position and materials.

In 2013, over 2,000 public libraries in Romania became the channel for distributing a graphic sex education programme; "Sex v the Stork". This online resource was written by a Romanian, Adriana Radu, following a year she spent in Germany working with a pro-abortion organisation. Roundly condemned by pro-family groups, "Sex v the Stork" was launched in the Romanian parliament on national "Day of the Library", and made available to any child visiting a library via the internet, avoiding control by parents or schools.

Speaking to packed meetings in five different towns and cities mainly in the north east of Romania, I invited people to look across Europe to Britain. Teaching children as young as five and six years old about their sexual organs, followed by detailed animated presentations of sexual intercourse are fairly standard elements of British classroom sex education. In Britain we are being told that children have a "right" to this education, indeed they "need" it in order to avoid pregnancy and to stay safe from sexual abuse. Nothing was lost in translation when I informed parents, teachers, doctors and priests that there is no evidence that teaching young children about sex protects them from premature pregnancy or sexual abuse. My take home message is: Parents you are the first and best educators of your children. You are the best people to protect your children.

In October 2015, 60 pro-abortion organisations petitioned the ministries of health and education to impose sex education on the country's schools. This was accompanied by typically vulgar demonstrations outside the respective ministries, with young people brandishing condoms, underwear and bearing placards with slogans such as "My vagina- my choice".

82 pro-life groups responded with a joint statement firmly rebuffing the claims of their opponents. Drawing on their recent past, they pointed out that the first political system to significantly separate children from their parents was Communism. They said: "It is not difficult to identify in the proposed approach for sex education an essentially Communist principle: children do not belong to parents they belong to the state". This sinister aspect of secular, state-sponsored sex education is perhaps not so keenly felt in many countries. But it is in Romania, where Christian families suffered so greatly under Communist rule.

Based in the lovely university city of Iasi (pronounced 'yash'), I covered several hundred miles by car travelling around this beautiful country. But it is a country haunted by people who are not there. For every Romanian alive today (approximately 18 million live in Romania, with a further 2 million living abroad), there is one who has been lost to abortion. 20 million unborn babies have been killed by abortion in Romania from 1970 to the present day.

However, I am very hopeful for Romania. During my recent visit I heard a number of priests publicly pledge the support of the church to defeat sex education in schools. The Archbishop of the Diocese of Buzau and Vrancea spoke at the meeting I addressed in the city of Buzau, again positioning the church with ordinary parents in their initiatives to protect their children.

In 2011 the Orthodox archbishopric of Iasi, established the first dedicated, diocesan pro-life department in Romania. The department offers care and support for women in crisis pregnancies, it runs a social project for large families and has produced an accredited pro-life, pro-family teaching resource for schools in Iasi. Archbishop Teofan is clearly loved by his flock, not least for his outstanding pro-life witness.

However grateful my Romanian hosts were in each place I spoke, I am more grateful to them for their commitment to life and the family. Many, many Romanian families are resisting the sex education invasion from the west which would indoctrinate and corrupt their children. If mandatory sex education is stopped at the Romanian border it will deal a much needed blow to the global campaign to sexualise and defile the innocent hearts and minds of the world's children.

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

"Heavy casualties are feared after a bomb blast ripped through packed crowds in Yola, north-east Nigeria, just days after the president, Muhammadu Buhari, visited [pictured] declaring that terrorist organisation Boko Haram was close to defeat."

I mourn for those killed and pray for those injured in the Nigeria blast and pray for the families of all those affected by this tragedy.

Last Friday, in connection with the tragic slaughter in Paris, I recalled Mother Teresa's words linking the lack of peace in the world to abortion.

In connection with yesterday's terrible tragedy in Nigeria, we in the West need also deeply to consider why the story of yesterday's murderous blast in Yola is not making top headlines in our news in the West today.

We are rightly transfixed by the tragic events in Paris, praying for the victims, and calling on politicians to act with prudence and courage to protect European citizens. However, it's apparent that the tragic events in Nigeria are currently being given much less significant attention, for example, on the BBC website where the top story first thing this morning was the friendly football match between England and France. At the time of writing this post, yesterday's terrifying violence in north east Nigeria, was in 8th place in the BBC's list of news stories, with the death of a rugby star being given more prominence.

We should also consider the words of Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Oyo, Nigeria, who told Alateia last February "that the United States has made clear it will not help Nigeria fight the Boko Haram terror group unless the country modify its laws regarding homosexuality, family planning and birth-control".

A similar observation was made by former U.S. Congressman Steve Stockman, a member of a four-person U.S. Congressional Delegation sent to Nigeria in the months after the horrific kidnapping of over 250 schoolgirls. In an interview with LifeSitenews, he said that the Obama administration was refusing critical intelligence to Nigeria in their fight against Boko Haram because of Nigeria's stance against same-sex "marriage".

Whatever the truth may be regarding Western policy towards Nigeria, I ask the question: Is the West's ideological commitment to killing unborn children and to so-called "sexual rights" robbing our nations of the compassion, the moral clarity and the strength to resist the evil agenda of today's terrorists?

Saturday, 14 November 2015

I mourn for those killed and pray for those injured in Paris and for their families.

This morning I am also mindful of Mother Teresa's words when she received the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize: "And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between."

Wednesday, 11 November 2015

Congratulations to John Deighan CEO of SPUC Scotland, for his eloquent and compassionate defence of the unborn child on BBC Radio Scotland today. He was being interviewed about the devolution of power of legislating on abortion to Scotland. Check it out at 1 hr 36 minutes at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrl40

"John does a fantastic job of shifting the focus to the unborn child and the injustices of the current law – you can hear by the end how annoyed and flustered Madeleine Glen is getting. It’s worth a listen!"

John Smeaton

About Me

I became involved in SPUC after graduating, when I established a branch in south London in 1974. I have worked full-time for SPUC for 39 years. I became chief executive of SPUC in the UK in 1996, having been general secretary since 1978. I was elected vice-president of International Right to Life Federation in 2005. At UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, Beijing, Istanbul and Rome, I helped coordinate more than 150 pro-life/pro-family groups resulting in pro-life victories in Cairo, Istanbul and Rome. I was educated at Salesian College, London, before going to Oxford where I graduated in English Language and Literature. I qualified as a teacher, becoming head of English at a secondary school. I am married to Josephine. We have a grown-up family and we live in north London.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to SPUC's staff, supporters and advisers for their help to me in researching, writing and producing this blog.

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